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Sunday, August 26, 2012

The Third Envelope

I am on the road, down in Northern Virginia, sitting in a darkened living room, working on my iPad while one Grandson plays "Carnivore Pro" on his Father's iPad, and the other plays "Lego Star Wars III", on the computer.  At 2228 (10:28 PM) last night my wife EMailed me, without comment (she knows I think Maureen Dowd is a wonderful, if misdirected, columnist), a link to Sunday's MoDo column, "Too Late to Shake That Etch A Sketch".

The "Etch a Sketch" reference was to a comment by Governor Romney's spokesman, Eric Fehrnstrom, back in March, about the campaign's inevitable swing from a more conservative stance to a more moderate stance.  (Yesterday I was playing Tic-Tac-Toe on an Etch-A-Sketch with a third Grandchild.)

But, moving on, MoDo says we will never see the real Romney, and she took a swipe at his "birth certificate" comment.  Frankly, I thought it was funny and fair game.  It isn't like the Romney camp is questioning where President Obama was born, even though the "birth certificate" has been a more closely guarded secret than Governor Romney's taxes.

Here is MoDo's complaint:
But Romney never did shake up the Etch A Sketch.  He remains too insecure about his base.  Romney and Obama are both running for their bases — and Mitt is running from his own elusive better angels.
But, she doesn't tell us what President Obama is running from.  Does President Obama even have "better angels"?  Here we are, three and a half years in and you would think he was down to the third envelope.

All that said, my question has to do with a tint of racism in MoDo's piece:
And that is what’s disturbing about the prospect of a President Romney.  Even though he once seemed to have sensible, moderate managerial instincts, he won’t stop ingratiating himself with the neo-Neanderthals.
Given what has and hasn't happened in the current Obama Administration, the first two sentences can be just dismissed out of hand.

However, given the amount of Neanderthal DNA in Caucasians and Asians, doesn't that seem like a racist swipe at Romney, and from an Irish Lass?

I, for one, am looking forward to a future focus on the right mixture of public and private actions to restore our economy, before imploding European and Chinese economies bring us all down.

What ever happened to the snowclone from 1992, It's the economy, stupid?

Regards  —  Cliff

8 comments:

JoeS said...

The etch-a-sketch lives on!
http://www.economist.com/node/21560864?zid=309&ah=80dcf288b8561b012f603b9fd9577f0e

Jack Mitchell said...

"... even though the "birth certificate" has been a more closely guarded secret than Governor Romney's taxes."

That's bullshit!

Stop dabbling in garbage. Such stuff poisons the legitimacy of the GOP. And here you are facilitating it.

Seriously, stop.

Anonymous said...

And you know this because?? Oh, I forgot, liberals know the truth because they believe it. The stuff conservatives come up with is pure bunk and conspiracy theory. Or, Jack, do you have a special channel for verification and validity of information?

Nobody but Obama and David Axelrod know the "truth" about the birth certificate.....where he was born....if he was born....who his REAL father was....and on and on. Certainly, there seems to be much "evidence" that seems to contradict the Axelrod story.

Personally, I can't say I know anything factual about Obama, other than he came out of nowhere and became President. The rest is pure mystery.

But, Jack, in the end, you are just another brick in the wall.

Jack Mitchell said...

Please Neal, do go on.

It's folks like you that will be hung around the neck of the loyal opposition, like a festering albatross.

Cliff, on the otherhand, has a reponsibility to stand his party back up. Wrench it from the clutch of the nitwits and bottom scrapers.

I spent some time worried about the branding of Obama, as a radical. Until I realized that it wasn't so much an accusation, as it was an authorization to allow the GOPers to let the freaks and misfits have a dominant voice in national politics.

Sarah Palin?

In the zeal to paint Dems as the worst, Republicans are lowering their standards. Consider this as you watch the Republican convention, wishing that others were up there speechifying.

Those folks are smart and prudent enough to sit this cycle out.

Anonymous said...

"Others?" The reason that the "others" are sitting this one out is that they were not CHOSEN to play. The likely reason that they weren't chosen to play is that they are each and every one a RINO or some whack job radical that is a departure from what is emerging as the changing and changed conservative view....I won't use the title "Republican" because it has become synonymous with "liberal" and "grand bargain."

The delta between YOUR beliefs as well as the herd you follow....and the emerging beliefs of the conservative movement is summarized in one single statement....and frankly....little else. "What is the role of government?" Liberals want government to be the arbiter of need satisfaction (e.g. Star Trek; 'The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one.')for the masses (well...except those in charge). The new conservative view (new in the sense that it is becoming rediscovered) is that government should play a service role, providing collective support only when necessary (defense, banking and finance, to name a very few). In the conservative view, the emphasis is on the individual and the responsibility to be a productive, contributing member of the local society...which has a multiplier effect on the state and national levels. In one view, the individual is the driver of success and prosperity and thus the giver. In the liberal view, the individual is simply a tool of central planning and control....a taker.... a drone.

Like I said Jack, you are just another brick in the wall.

Jack Mitchell said...

In the conservative view, the emphasis is on the individual and the responsibility to be a productive, contributing member of the local society...which has a multiplier effect on the state and national levels. In one view, the individual is the driver of success and prosperity and thus the giver. In the liberal view, the individual is simply a tool of central planning and control....a taker.... a drone.

I'd say that in the conservative view, the individual strives to be unbridled. It is the Ayn Rand self congratulatory, mental masterbation, that seeks to deny the intrinsic support of community. That perversion is hijacked by the coporatists that seek to install a neo-feudalism, bent on subjecting the masses to their minority will.

The liberal view acoounts for a social compact. The whole United We Stand! mantra. The collaboration requires the focus be put on the mutual expression of will. The thrust of the egoist is set aside.

Of course, those of us with military experience know that it takes both the egotistical thrust of a Patton, combined with the collaborative compact of the Third Army to achieve greatness.

I only spend time arguing that it is the collective compact that is the causual link to success, in the onslaught of adolescent rantings about individual greatness.

Anonymous said...

You are talking apples and oranges Jack. An individual allowed and encouraged to be as good as they can be is a benefit to society...that social compact you mention. Only by INDIVIDUALS contributing can a SOCIETY be successful. That speaks to social success.

The orange is the entire discussion of the role of government in either being a facilitator of individual capability and success (smaller is better) or being the puppet master for all of its peons.

Two things Jack.....connected....but not necessarily linked.

For conservatives.....or all the other high minded, pseudointellectual labels you drape on the conservative movement......the least amount of government that can exist and still provide its required services is best. For liberals, there can never be enough government.

One is freedom by individual right. The other is freedom as defined by a central, omnipresent, omnipotent central authority.

Jack Mitchell said...

I really can't figure where you get this paranoid nonsense from.

Almost everyone I have talked too, conservative or liberal, is at heart an anarchist/libertarian that begrudgingly accepts goverment as referees.

Liberals want the govt to maintain a level playing field. While conservative feudal lords want the police and military to safeguard their pillaging.

To use a Roots metaphor, I laugh at the delusioned that fancy themselves Kunta Kinte, when they are clearly Tobie.

Enjoy your chains. Go fetch, Neal.